ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the contemporary evidence concerning the nature of the relation between motor and cognitive development with a special focus on the first ten years of children’s lives. Piaget assumed that improving motor skills, such as the ability of self-initiated locomotion, or developing manual dexterity gives rise to the adaptation and differentiation of cognitive schemas, which in turn will change the motor actions initiated by the infant or child. In the context of children’s school readiness, individual differences in motor development have been documented to predict early academic achievement, seemingly also supporting a general relationship between motor and cognitive development. Brain-imaging studies in healthy samples show that when performing cognitive and motor tasks, increased activation in certain “cognitive” and “motor” brain areas is observed: predominantly, the prefrontal cortex, the cerebellum, the striatum, and the basal ganglia are involved in tasks from both domains.
